New Windows based workstation.

[alatreille]

Hey all,

I'm about to look at upgrading the main work computer.  I'd appreciate peoples thoughts. 
Up front, I'm not an Apple person, so won't be venturing that way.

For the past 4 years I've been working on a Lenovo W530 workstation laptop.  Gradually upgrading it as I go.  It's got an i7-3720QM @2.6 and 32 gigs of ram on board with a Quadro K2000M graphics card inside.  System is on an msata SSD and my working files live on a 1tb SSD in a caddy where the optical drive would go.

It still works well, but when I'm working on a multilayered .psb file from the 5dsr or the Credo 60 I'm noticing too much down time (ie finding myself surfing the net a bit more...)
It's been great because when I travel I can pick it up and move with it, continuing to do some of the grunt work, so I think it can still work well as a travelling machine, but not as my primary machine.

I'm trying to decide between jumping on to the new Lenovo P50 or building a desktop from scratch (similar to the Puget Serenity setup) 
In both, I'll be running a 3 monitor set up when in the office.   1x NEC PA272W and 2x Dell 23inch ips displays for palettes etc.

I think I'd be happy outlaying $2500-$3000CAD at this point in time, but know that I'd be upgrading later on.

The majority of my work is completed in Lightroom, photoshop and C1 for the Credo.

Basic starting set up.

i7 processor (or will an i5 suffice?)
32gigs of ram
Graphics - GTX or Quadro - What do I need to run the 3 monitor setup.
2x Evo 250s - one for Operating, one for scratch disk.

So I'm trying to work out if I'll notice a significant difference between the desktop and the P50?

What's likely to be a more future proof solution?

I appreciate any thoughts people might have on this.

Thanks very much.

Cheers

Andrew

[AlterEgo]

32gigs of ram

current notebooks can do 64Gb RAM

[AlterEgo]

Graphics

C1 claims to be able to use _all_ supported GPUs (i & d), so you can consider a dual GPU setup (possible in many PC notebooks even, like dual GTX980M) and modern i7 with good iGPU = 3 GPUs for C1 to use.

[alatreille]

current notebooks can do 64Gb RAM

Yep.  Thanks.  Going to start with 32 (2x16) then upgrade later on.

[alatreille]

C1 claims to be able to use _all_ supported GPUs (i & d), so you can consider a dual GPU setup (possible in many PC notebooks even, like dual GTX980M) and modern i7 with good iGPU = 3 GPUs for C1 to use.

Interesting thought.  Would it help with photoshop and lightroom as well?

[alatreille]

If I go for a desktop, this is sort of where I'm headed.

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/latsap/saved/Vd7KHx

[AlterEgo]

Interesting thought.  Would it help with photoshop and lightroom as well?

for ACR/LR/PS I did not see any "official" statements (for example that both dGPU, like from NVidia or AMD, and iGPU, if present in intel cpu, will be used for calculations - nowadays iGPUs from intel are while not the top of the pop are not that bad either), for C1 that was from their employees in P1 forums, more than once.

[Pictus]

Congratulations, very nice build!

Me thinking...
The ARCTIC MX-2 is good, but the liquid metal Coollaboratory is the #1.
Works nice with cooper/nickel(Noctua+CPU), but corrodes aluminum and it is conductive.
Anyway, I have being using conductive thermal paste for eons without any problem...

The Asus Z170-A motherboard is good and has a M.2 slot you can plug an ultra fast Samsung 950 Pro M.2
One Samsung 950 Pro M.2 is more expensive, but more durable and faster than two Samsung 850 EVOs and there is no need for cables! 
So, use one Samsung 950 Pro M.2 for OS and scratch. (How To boot from M.2 slot)
If you go this way, add some small heat sink or this thing.

[george2787]

I think you could start by spotting what is slowing you and how can you improve on that:

- If you are hitting RAM limit and/or filling your scratch disk, a new rig with the same amount of RAM is not going to help, try setting photoshop to display your efficiency and monitor available space on your scratch disk to rule this out if your problem is here, go 64 Gigs on the new machine or you will be facing the same problem.

- In the graphics card department, even a low end one will drive 3 monitors today, and although you probably want something more in the medium range (think 960-970 for nvidia or AMD on the same range), going for the dual 980's sounds nice if you do video because you could cut rendering time a lot, or even if you are exporting thousands of images a day, cutting time in half or more could be nice, but I'm guessing you won't mind at all if capture one takes 0.5 seconds or 1.5 when exporting a PSD and the savings are significant.

- My guess after working with really big files is that if RAM is not an issue your main bottleneck is the processor teaming up with photoshop's inability to multicore on things like opening and saving.

About future proofing machines, a desktop is always better because you can add via PCI new ports, upgrade graphics cards and even the CPU. That said the price of high end pieces tends to double in price and give only about 15-20% bump in performance and may be better to go bang for the buck knowing where to invest

[Pictus]

- In the graphics card department, even a low end one will drive 3 monitors today, and although you probably want something more in the medium range (think 960-970 for nvidia or AMD on the same range), going for the dual 980's sounds nice if you do video because you could cut rendering time a lot, or even if you are exporting thousands of images a day, cutting time in half or more could be nice, but I'm guessing you won't mind at all if capture one takes 0.5 seconds or 1.5 when exporting a PSD and the savings are significant.

The QUADRO card will provide 10-bit per channel for Photoshop and his NEC.

[dwswager]

Hey all,

I'm about to look at upgrading the main work computer.  I'd appreciate peoples thoughts. 
Up front, I'm not an Apple person, so won't be venturing that way.

For the past 4 years I've been working on a Lenovo W530 workstation laptop.  Gradually upgrading it as I go.  It's got an i7-3720QM @2.6 and 32 gigs of ram on board with a Quadro K2000M graphics card inside.  System is on an msata SSD and my working files live on a 1tb SSD in a caddy where the optical drive would go.

It still works well, but when I'm working on a multilayered .psb file from the 5dsr or the Credo 60 I'm noticing too much down time (ie finding myself surfing the net a bit more...)
It's been great because when I travel I can pick it up and move with it, continuing to do some of the grunt work, so I think it can still work well as a travelling machine, but not as my primary machine.

I'm trying to decide between jumping on to the new Lenovo P50 or building a desktop from scratch (similar to the Puget Serenity setup) 
In both, I'll be running a 3 monitor set up when in the office.   1x NEC PA272W and 2x Dell 23inch ips displays for palettes etc.

I think I'd be happy outlaying $2500-$3000CAD at this point in time, but know that I'd be upgrading later on.

The majority of my work is completed in Lightroom, photoshop and C1 for the Credo.

Basic starting set up.

i7 processor (or will an i5 suffice?)
32gigs of ram
Graphics - GTX or Quadro - What do I need to run the 3 monitor setup.
2x Evo 250s - one for Operating, one for scratch disk.

So I'm trying to work out if I'll notice a significant difference between the desktop and the P50?

What's likely to be a more future proof solution?

I appreciate any thoughts people might have on this.

Thanks very much.

Cheers

Andrew

I've been building PCs since the late 1980s. My current Desktop is an I7 with 16GB RAM.  It is a few years old at this point and getting ready for upgrade.

I highly recommend building your own if you don't need the portability of a laptop.  While I like Asus and Gigabyte Motherboards, for my HTPC, Server and Main Photography computers, I prefer the intel boards.

Go I7  Most software now is multithreaded and can use multiple cores.

32-64GB RAM is what I would recommend.  Get fast and stable.

For video, you might want to look at the NVidia Quadro cards.  The workstation cards can do 30bit color with Photoshop on Windows.

Think forward in all you select.  Nothing worse than wanting to add something, but the motherboard won't support it for example.  USB3 support is there in all boards, but on how many ports and headers?

Spend more on the PowerSupply!!!!  This is not a place to cheap out.  Look at reviews, but typically Seasonic supplies have been good in the past.  It changes rapidly though.

In addition to the SSD boot drive and Scratch disk, I use a pair of 1TB drives in a mirror for intermediate storage and work files before offloading to my 9TB server and DVD.

[Ajoy Roy]

For really fast throughput with modern multi threaded software nothing beat Xeon based workstation. I built my own dual Xeon workstation over seven years ago, and it is still going strong. My system
. Supermicro dual Xeon MB with 16 ECC RAM Slots
. 8GB ECC RAM
. 2 x Xeon E5420 2.5 GHx processors
. 2 x Video cards - Radion 6800 and Radion 5400
. 3 Monitors - 2 x LG 24" 1200x1920, 1 x Benq 1280x1024
. 6 HDD
. 1 x DVD
. USB 3 board (there were none on board 7 years ago!)

[alatreille]

Thanks Ajoy.
Appreciate your comments.

I've had a busy month of travel, so this fell by the wayside.
The guys who have been helping me finalize my build here in Vancouver, actually just put the new Lenovo P310 in there as an option.

So the choice now is whether to go for an i7 6700 at 4.0ghz or a Xeon E3-1245 v5 at 3.4ghz
A Quadro K1200 will be used with either.

Has anyone any thoughts on how either would affect the performance for us?

Cheers

Andrew

For really fast throughput with modern multi threaded software nothing beat Xeon based workstation. I built my own dual Xeon workstation over seven years ago, and it is still going strong. My system
. Supermicro dual Xeon MB with 16 ECC RAM Slots
. 8GB ECC RAM
. 2 x Xeon E5420 2.5 GHx processors
. 2 x Video cards - Radion 6800 and Radion 5400
. 3 Monitors - 2 x LG 24" 1200x1920, 1 x Benq 1280x1024
. 6 HDD
. 1 x DVD
. USB 3 board (there were none on board 7 years ago!)

[Pictus]

The I7-6700 is a small bit faster and probably cheaper RAM/motherboard.

[bjanes]

I've been building PCs since the late 1980s. My current Desktop is an I7 with 16GB RAM.  It is a few years old at this point and getting ready for upgrade.

I highly recommend building your own if you don't need the portability of a laptop.  While I like Asus and Gigabyte Motherboards, for my HTPC, Server and Main Photography computers, I prefer the intel boards.

For video, you might want to look at the NVidia Quadro cards.  The workstation cards can do 30bit color with Photoshop on Windows.

I built my own desktop about a year ago and it is working well. My current video card is a Nivdia GTX 750 Ti with 2048 MB of memory. I have been thinking about a Quadro card. I understand that they have better drivers than the gaming cards, but would the performance for Photoshop be better? I don't do games.

Thanks,

Bill

[Pictus]

No, what they give is 10-bit per channel for Photoshop.
https://photographylife.com/what-is-30-bit-photography-workflow

But in OSX
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=106333.0

[JaapD]

I built my own desktop about a year ago and it is working well. My current video card is a Nivdia GTX 750 Ti with 2048 MB of memory. I have been thinking about a Quadro card. I understand that they have better drivers than the gaming cards, but would the performance for Photoshop be better? I don't do games.

Thanks,

Bill

Hi Bill,

The quadro cards are more suited for workstation motherboards. I don’t think you’ll benefit anything here, unless you’ll absolutely have a need for 10 bit video.
If you want maximum graphics performance you’re far better off following the gaming route. Even if you’re not a gamer you’ll still get the speed, number of CUDA cores, memory size, and also the latest drivers. You could upgrade to a Nvidia 970 or 980 type card if you want more performance.

Apart from this, if one wants better PC performance one should focus at its slowest performer in the chain which usually is the storage/scratch/temp disk. These days a PCIe based SSD (for instance a Samsung SM951), either directly interfacing to the motherboard, or through a card in the PCIe bus (by no means through the SATA interface!) is the way to go. Of course sufficient RAM would also help as swapping to virtual memory is a slooooow process.

[alatreille]

Hi All,

Thanks for chiming in.
I thought I'd give an update of where I've landed (working with a local builder)

Case:  Fractal Design Define R5 Black
Power: EVGA SuperNOVA 650 G2 Power Supply
Mother Board:  Asus Z170-A Desktop Motherboard - Intel Z170 Chipset - Socket H4 LGA-1151
Processor:  Intel Core i7 i7-6700K Quad-core (4 Core) 4 GHz Processor - Socket H4 LGA-1151Retail Pack
Boot and Scratch Disk: Samsung 950 PRO MZ-V5P512BW 512 GB Internal Solid State Drive
Working Drive:  WD Black WD3003FZEX 3 TB 3.5" Internal Hard Drive or HGST Ultrastar 7K4000 HUS724030ALA640 3 TB 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
Ram: 32 or 64gigs - Kingston 16GB Module - DDR4 2133MHz
Graphics: PNY Quadro K1200 Graphic Card - 4 GB GDDR5 - PCI Express 2.0 x16 - Low-profile - Single Slot Space Required
Cooling: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Cooling Fan/Heatsink
Optical: LG GH24NSC0B Internal DVD-Writer - OEM Pack - Black

It's going to come in around the $2600CAD mark + Tax.

After reviewing a couple of options with the Xeon processors, I couldn't come near this from a cost point of view.
I was going to go for a Lenovo workstation for the support/warranty, but figure if I'm working with a local company, I have that just around the corner either way.

Any other thoughts before I push the button?

Cheers

Andrew

[Ajoy Roy]

Excellent configuration for the price. I always prefer to work with local companies, as the support is much faster and in general better than larger companies.

[Pictus]

Very good!
I would change the DVD burner to a Blu-ray burner like the LG WH16NS40 or Pioneer BDR-209DBK.